I named my company girasol because I’ve always had a fascination with sunflowers. Their color scheme is cheery, sanguine, vibrant.

They are the earth, coming into bloom – that soil-like core with a ring of sunray petals around it.

I bought some recently, to put around the house. And in looking at them closer, on second glance, I see that they’re almost unnerving. These wild deities stuck around our house - it looks like an enormous eye, this penetrating black hole into some biological plexus I can’t even name.

And I’m the writer.

They’re very powerful plants, girasoles. I now see why they’re used to solicit Oshun – the earthen goddess of sweet water – in prayers to her. There’s this almost sound barrier-breaking bigness to them – this glorious burst that never stops bursting. They’re always reaching, always looking. Always reaching out, towards us or the sun.

Our sunflowers are like these plant-based people, laying around our house; organic Cyclopes, staring at us from the mason jars.